On February 1, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) released its False Claims Act (FCA) statistics for the 2021 fiscal year. According to the DOJ, in fiscal year 2021, the government paid out $237 million to whistleblowers who exposed fraud and false claims by filing qui tam lawsuits. This is the lowest total paid out to False Claims Act whistleblowers in a single year since 2008.
“The newly released statistics reflect a troubling trend in recent years,” said whistleblower attorney Stephen M. Kohn of Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto. “The DOJ has begun to treat whistleblowers like second-class citizens. It routinely throws out strong whistleblower cases without just cause. While the SEC and CFTC are making great strides forward with their whistleblower programs, the Justice Department is in reverse.”
Under the False Claim Act’s reward provision, if a whistleblower’s original information results in a sanction against a fraudster, they are entitled to a minimum payment of 15% and a maximum payment of 30% of the proceeds collected by the government. The law’s qui tam provisions allow whistleblowers to file suits against fraudsters on behalf of the government.
In the 2014 fiscal year, the DOJ set a record by paying out $715 million to whistleblowers. That year, the DOJ recovered over $4.4 billion from whistleblower-initiated cases. Since then, the amount paid out to whistleblowers has been in decline. The agency has not paid out over $500 million to whistleblowers in a fiscal year...
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